


A Matter of Philosophy

by Lorelei



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Boredom, Cooking, Domestic, Gen, Literary References & Allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/pseuds/Lorelei
Summary: It happens every December - Wolfe decides he has earned enough for the year and knocks off work. Archie is bored. Wolfe is not.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Matter of Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NervousAsexual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/gifts).



In the bottom drawer of my desk, underneath my holster, I keep a deck of playing cards. Most of the year, they sit unused, not because I don’t like cards. Most weeks I play poker with Saul at his regular game. Sometimes I even leave with more money than I had when I arrived. Whether I win or lose I have a good time shooting the breeze with the boys and drinking a sidecar or two. The cards in my desk are for solitaire, which I hate. There is no fun in playing against yourself. I only do it when I have run out of anything else to do. On December 23rd, 1953, the cards came out. 

I had just said that I was bored and asked, rhetorically, how Wolfe could just sit there reading day after day, week after week. I didn’t expect an answer. Wolfe is capable of some intense mental juggling so the challenge of reading while also ignoring me is trivial by comparison. But this time he sighed and responded “It is a matter of personal philosophy, Archie. I do not propose to waste my life in boredom. Friedrich Nietzsche said _‘Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?’_ In this, I agree with him.”

I shot back “I get my personal philosophy from Voltaire, who said _‘Our labor preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.’_ I know that the bank account is fat and happy and we are in no danger of wanting for anything, but my lack of labor is making me weary.” And then I opened my bottom drawer, pulled out the cards and began shuffling them, riffling them back and forth from hand to hand. I had been saving that quote up for a week by that point. 

You have to understand that our last case had ended before Thanksgiving. Mr. Herman Chambers, a businessman with the kind of bank account that could afford Wolfe’s usual fees, had hired us to find out who was blackmailing him. It was a rather delicate operation as the blackmailer was threatening to reveal Mr. Chambers’ membership in a very exclusive Manhattan club for … let’s say confirmed bachelors. Except that Chambers was a married man with two grown children and the kind of conservative Wall Street business that wouldn’t withstand the revelation that he had a private life of any kind, never mind this kind. Mr. Chambers brought me along to his club, which stirred things up to the point where the club secretary was murdered and the membership books were stolen. Saul, Fred, and Orrie tailed half the club and I had casual conversations over drinks or coffee with the other half. In the end, the blackmailer turned out to be Chambers’ own son, trying to get a head start on his inheritance. Chambers didn’t like it, of course, but he paid the bill that we sent.

After that, Wolfe decided he was done for the year. He had made enough money that he was in the top tax bracket and would get to keep less than ten cents of every dollar he earned through the end of the year so he didn’t see the point of working. I deposited Chambers’ check and withdrew payments for Saul, Fred, and Orrie and Wolfe added a Christmas bonus and let the boys know that we would be in touch after New Years. 

This happens every year. I’ve talked about having to jolly Wolfe out of his strikes and get him working again to fatten up our bank balance. It’s not fun by any means, but at least I’ve got a strategy for those situations. But when we hit December, there is no budging him. He has a logical, rational argument for why the monetary benefits of working are not sufficient to compensate for the cost of his time and he won’t be talked out of it. 

Every year I think it will be fine. Some years I even have a plan. I start with working on typing up the backlog of orchid notes and records. That takes me anywhere from a couple days to a week. While I am typing, Wolfe is reading, working on his own backlog of books. This year he started with _Desiree_ , which had dominated the New York Times best seller list for much of the year. 

“Pfui!” Wolfe bent the corner of a page and closed the book. I think I have mentioned how you can tell Wolfe’s opinion of a book by whether he dog ears the pages, slips a piece of paper in it, or graces it with one of his favorite bookmarks.

 _Desiree_ did not rate a bookmark.

“It is understandable that some license must be taken in the genre of historical fiction, but this is outrageous. It is expected that the author must use their imagination to supply dialogue and to recount the intimacies of daily routine, but to manufacture wholesale historical events on the order of Napoleon Bonaparte surrendering his sword to the Queen of Sweden is completely unsupportable.”

I finished the orchid records and moved on to balancing the checkbook and squaring up all of the accounts for the year. Meanwhile, Wolfe took a break from reading and spent a week in the kitchen. He and Fritz were experimenting with the ideal proportions of beef and pork in meatloaf. I always thought of meatloaf as quintessentially American but they explained that there are variations of it all over Europe. On Monday we ate meatloaf made from half ground beef and half ground pork with roasted potatoes and squash gratin.

Wolfe closed his eyes and concentrated as he ate. “This is our template, Fritz, against which each of the contenders will be compared.Take note of the taste, the texture, the moistness of the meat, and the integrity of the structure. It must hold together, but there comes a point at which further density becomes undesirable. The current mixture of equal portions of each meat is acceptable but it has room for improvement in both flavor and texture.” Fritz nodded in agreement with Wolfe's pronouncement. 

On Tuesday they made meatloaf with three quarters ground beef and one quarter ground pork.

Fritz grimaced. “I do not like to even serve it to you, sir. It is too dry. It is not fit to eat.”

Wolfe took one look at the slice of meatloaf on his plate and pushed it away without even tasting it. "I concur. The beef lacks sufficient fat to keep the mixture moist."

I thought it would be ok with some gravy, but they threw that one in the trash and we had omelets for dinner.

On Wednesday, we ate meatloaf with one quarter beef and three quarters pork. Wolfe and Fritz both agreed that that one was moister but they said that it lacked flavor. I thought gravy was the answer again, but I didn't get a vote.

“What if we return to more _boeuf_ ,” Fritz suggested, “ and add gelatin to hold the moisture?”

Wolfe nodded. "An excellent suggestion. Perhaps barding as well?"

I had to go look up 'barding'. Turns out it means to wrap something in a strip of fat. Decked out in a jacket of bacon, Thursday’s meatloaf, served with whipped potatoes and carrots braised in butter, was declared a success. Where I was raised, meatloaf has meat in it and some bread crumbs and maybe a beaten egg to hold it together. When Fritz makes meatloaf he puts a boiled egg in the middle. This is a point that he and Wolfe agree upon as that is the way their mamas made it once upon a time in Europe. Neither of them talks much about their past, so it always surprises me to learn little things about them like this. I was suspicious of the egg at first, but it is pretty when you slice it and it does make for tasty sandwiches the next day. Fits right in with the bacon too. 

After balancing the accounts, I cleaned out the safe and reorganized my desk drawers. You’d be surprised at what accumulates in a detective’s safe over the course of a year. I disposed of a lady's glove stained with motor oil, the buttons off of a clown costume, and a pair of gold earrings, among other items. Wolfe, having abandoned Desiree turned to another new book, _Fahrenheit 451_ by Ray Bradbury. That one seemed to be going down better. It had a provisional slip of paper and was looking like it might be promoted to a lower tier bookmark. 

I was running out of office tasks, so I picked up _Desiree_ and gave it a go. I had no idea who Napoleon had surrendered his sword to after Waterloo so I didn’t suppose that the historical inaccuracies would bother me any, but the book turned out to be the soppy diary of a romantic French teenager. I suppose the girl must grow up to be the Queen of Sweden, but I never got that far. 

Giving up on that, I did find a book of my own that I enjoyed. It was a spy thriller called _Casino Royale_ , the debut novel of a new author named Fleming. It was a quick read, though, and only held me for a couple of days. 

I dusted my desk. I sharpened pencils. I looked up Waterloo in the encyclopedia. I took a walk to the kitchen and got a glass of milk. When Wolfe was up with the orchids I even tried his new book, _Fahrenheit 451_ , but it was a bit experimental for me. It went on like that for weeks on end. Wolfe read books, tended orchids, experimented in the kitchen, and planned elaborate menus with Fritz, all of his favorite things. Fritz cooked, experimented in the kitchen, and planned menus with Wolfe and was happy that there were no clients or policemen ringing the doorbell at all hours and that I was always home for dinner. I, well I did nothing. There were no calls to answer and no notes to take and no one to tail and no one new to meet. There was no action and no excitement and, sure, a break every now and then is nice but when it goes on long enough it isn’t a break from anything anymore.

This is what brought us to me shuffling a deck of playing cards on the Wednesday before Christmas. 

Wolfe closed his book and rang for beer. “Archie, your fidgeting has become intolerable and thus I do not propose to tolerate it any longer. I hired you in your capacity as a man of action and it is not surprising that you chafe at periods of prolonged inactivity.” 

Fritz arrived with two bottles of beer and deposited them on Wolfe’s desk along with a tall, chilled Pilsner glass. He nodded at me on his way back to the kitchen. Wolfe opened his first bottle, poured it slowly into the glass, and drank down a full half of it in one long, thirsty guzzle.

“I have enlisted the aid of Miss Rowan. You will meet her at 4 pm this afternoon at the skating pond at Rockefeller Center.” He shuddered. “Miss Rowan assured me that gliding about precariously perched on metal blades that could slip out from under one at any moment is a pleasant activity that provides both fresh air and exercise. After skating you have a reservation at the English Grill overlooking the pond. Marko says that they are acceptable and he recommends the mixed grill and the baked Alaska.” He paused for another swallow of his beer and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. “After dining, you and Miss Rowan will call at the box office of Radio City Music Hall where you will find two tickets to tonight’s performance of their Christmas Spectacular under your name. I am told that this show provides ample opportunities to observe the legs of comely women, a hobby you have occasionally mentioned in your accounts of our work. I trust you will find these arrangements satisfactory.” Wolfe drained his glass, picked up his book, and went back to ignoring me.

Satisfactory, hell. I was touched. He had clearly put some thought into this. How did he manage to make all of those phone calls without my noticing? And since when does he read my books? I put the cards back in the bottom drawer. “Thank you,” I said. “I was getting a little stir crazy.”


End file.
